December 9,2014

With the arrival of the StudioLive RM-series rackmount mixers, we’ve received a lot of questions about the functionality. 96K? Can they be cascaded? What about the Dante cards? When can I get one?

We’ve answered those questions (and more) in the RM-series mixer FAQ, which can be had by clicking here. But we’ve also gotten a lot of other questions that we feel are worthy of their own FAQ—particularly regarding Ray’s beard. While we understand and appreciate your curiosity, we have had to keep some secrets for a while for competitive reasons—but, the cat is out of the bag and we can go public with the announcement of the Garibaldi FH16K. Read below for more info.

Ray’s Beard FAQ

The Garibaldi FH16K is a true-analog face-mountable beard that allows for maintaining facial warmth in the coming winter months, as well as unsurpassed soup and juice filtering. Beta testers of the Garibaldi have reported up to a 30% increase in their dates-per-week ratio shortly after concluding installation. Garibaldi is compatible with all walks of life, and enjoys cross-fashion compatibility with both corduroys and flannel.

While currently only compatible with human males over the age of 14, we plan to broaden availability to women and younger users through a hormone therapy add-on kit available in Q3 2015. At the time of this writing we have no plans to make the beard available to Androids.

Q: Is the Garibaldi FH16K difficult to maintain?

A: Not really, but carrying the weight of the beard consumes approximately 200 calories daily.

Q: Ray has more hair on the bottom half of his head than the top half. That’s weird.

A: This is not a question.

Q: MIDI implementation?

A: Not available at this time.

Q: When does it ship?

A: The Garibaldi FH16K is available to begin growing immediately, with full installation concluding in 2-3 years.

Q: What networking options exist?

A: There is no Dante option planned, as Dante Alighieri (the great Italian poet who wrote the Divine Comedy) was clean-shaven. AVBeard is being considered.

Q: What customization options exist?

A: At the time of this writing, the Garibaldi FH16K grows to the default Grizzly Adams setting pictured above. We will be introducing the FuzzTrim QT expansion in Q2 2015, allowing for stored presets including the Goatee, Neckbeard (AKA “The Linux”), Mutton Chop, Fu Manchu, and Gandalf.*

*Gandalf has not yet tested for compatibility with OSX Mordor, please wait before updating your OS

Tech Specs:

Follicle Preamp

Type

Cellular Unbalanced Male x 16,000

Frequency Response (±3.0 dB)

1 Hz to 20 kHz

Input Impedance (Balanced)

2Ω

B/G Ratio: (Brown to Grey)

16,000/3

Input

Type

Multicellular

TS Unbalanced Male Input Impedance

0.5 MΩ

Chin Output

Type

0.00067” Follicular Mono

Maximum Output

≈6″ (152.4 mm), annual

Balanced Output Impedance

2Ω

Sideburn Outputs

Type

0.00085” Follicular Active Stereo

Maximum Output

≈8″ (203.2 mm), annual

Balanced Output Impedance

2Ω

MIDI I/O

Type

N/A, that would be silly

Physical

Dimensions

1F (Facemountable)

Length

12.5” (317.5 mm)

Depth

1.75″ (44.45 mm)

Width

8.5” (215.9 mm)

Diameter per follicle

≈ 0.0275″ (00.70 mm)

Weight (Total)

.5 lbs (0.226 kg)

Sex Appeal

≥ ∞

Power

Calorie bus-powered

As a commitment to constant improvement, PreSonus Audio Electronics, Inc., reserves the right to change any specification stated herein at anytime, without notification.

August 14,2014

[This just in from Fonz, who recently lucked out and took home a PreSonus RC 500 from the Potluck Recording Conference (formerly Tape Op Con) giveaway! We’ve had a little hand in Potluck since 2004 or so, and this year a lucky winner got an RC 500!]

Hey guys, let me start by thanking you for your generosity! The PreSonus RC 500 will be cared for like a family member, but worked like a mule!

Potluck Audio Conference is a meeting of the minds where vendors, musicians, engineers, producers, fans of audio, and/or anyone else with a set of ears can travel to Tucson, Arizona in 100+ degree weather to share ideas, techniques, and many other valuable aspects of their respective industries. Craig Schumacher from WaveLab Studios is the guy to thank for this amazing event. Craig Schumacher is also an instructor at Scottsdale Community College, which happens to be two hours away from his residence and studio in Tucson. How and where he finds time to teach us is still a mystery, as he is constantly pulled in at least three directions at any given time. The guy is a blessing to us all!

This year Craig asked me to attend the event as a participant in a panel sponsored and engineered by Sweetwater’s very own Mike Pinotte and Austin Moss. The guys used one of the songs I created and had me track a verse to use in their Vocal Recording panel. It was a great experience, needless to say.

Currently I am a student at Scottsdale Community College. The degrees I’m acquiring are in Supply Chain Management and another in Audio Production. This doesn’t leave me much time for work, so the last year was a little rough as I had to quit my job and focus on school. As a result of the sacrifice, something VERY cool happened; my mixes started to get better, and people started to give me money to make their recording sound better.

Once again, I’d like to thank you for your kindness. Your company and the awesome gear you create are now a part of our collective efforts to keep the music alive!

September 28,2013

Spotted this on Peter’s desk. In Baton Rouge, team spirit knows no bounds, but we had to draw the line the last time Rick showed up in full purple and gold body paint. We told him that we sent him home for a shower, but fact is it was really posed a significant health risk.

Saints fans, don’t get your hopes up… this is a one-off customization.

August 8,2013

An interesting bit of recording industry foreshadowing, discovered in a thrift store by our own Carl Jacobson!

This pic is snapped from the back of 1963’s “Dave Brubeck Live at Carnegie Hall.” Tape splicing to edit a performance may seem downright quaint by today’s standards, but this raises a great discussion.

What would Teo Macero say about today’s editing practices in music?

And when it comes to editing a performance, where do you draw the line—if at all? What will you NOT do?

July 12,2013

Here’s a great video covering the soundtrack production for “Man of Steel,” the latest cinematic adventures of DC’s Big Blue Boy Scout.

If you’ve ever tried to get just the right drummer for your project/band, this video may well make you cry, as Hans Zimmer gets to use Matt Chamberlain, Sheila E., Josh Freeze, Pharell Williams, Danny Carey, John JR Robinson, Jason Bonham, Satnam Ramgotra, Toss Panos, Jim Keltner, and more—simultaneously.

Once you’ve recovered from geeking out over a dozen of the world’s best session drummers all working together in the same room, take a closer look at the studio setup for this. The group performs on twelve risers arranged in a circle, with all individual drums miked, plus overheads, plus room mics. The result is a thunderous surround-sound mix of drum bangin’ that puts the listener in the middle of what must have been the world’s greatest drum circle.

June 21,2013

[This just in from Steve Freeman, National Director of Camp Jam, far and away the rockinest summer camp that kids have ever known. A great guy, and a great organization that we are proud to have a hand in.]

These kids are growing up right, using Studio One and the StudioLive mixers to learn recording and mixing. The StudioLive 16.4.2 is being used to mix and record performances from both the campers and visiting artists! Studio One Artist continues to be the DAW format for our recording/songwriting class.

The features and simplicity of StudioLive and Studio One have our camps running smoothly, and make a real difference in the sound of the recordings and performances. Campers are all being given a PreSonus code to download Studio One Artist. We could not be happier with PreSonus and their efforts to support Camp Jam and music education!

THANKS TO ALL OF YOU. YOU ARE INCREDIBLE! These are pictures from Atlanta—we will send from other cities as we move through the summer. If you’re interested in Camp Jam, please contact us, summer classes are filling up fast!

June 14,2013

Look, there’s no two ways around it—polyrhythms are HARD. Playing one beat at a time is difficult enough for some folks, but how about playing a three-count beat with your left hand and a simultaneous four-count beat on the right? Moving on to other time signatures, particularly in odd meter, doesn’t just add to the difficulty—it multiplies.

Until today, I had never before seen such a lucid, impressive, and concise demonstration of polyrhythms as robertinventor has assembled on his YouTube channel. His expertly-crafted visuals (created with his own software, Bounce Metronome) drive home the timing in a much more digestible manner than the best drummer you know may be capable of. All of these videos begin at a slow tempo and gradually accelerate. Play along!

June 8,2013

[Jeff Blackwell is the lucky guy who was recently bestowed an incredible collection of lost recordings from the Old South Jamboree from 1973 to 1976.The recordings include performances from many local Louisiana acts of the era, but the Old South Jamboree’s roster also included true luminaries of country music, including: George Jones, Buck Owens, Loretta Lynn, Dolly Parton, Ernest Tubb, and Porter Wagoner. Jeff took on the daunting task of archiving these 16 reels of history to the digital world, and his PreSonus StudioLive 16.4.2 had a hand in it! I called Jeff and got the word from the horse’s mouth on this once-in-a-lifetime story. WBRZ recently aired a piece on this tale as well, embedded below—note StudioLive front-and-center in the video—but I HAD to talk to Jeff about some of the nittier, grittier details of this fascinating project.]

Hey Jeff! First, can I get some background on yourself and your work in audio?

Jeff: “I was a DJ at WYNK-FM back in the day—they are still on the air today. Back then, we used to sign on at 5 a.m. and sign off at midnight, it wasn’t a 24-hour station. We’d turn the transmitter on every morning before the show. They would pay me 45 cents an hour plus all the records I could eat!”

How did you come across the tapes?

Jeff: “Well, Going back in time… back in the 70s, WYNK would broadcast the shows from the Old South Jamboree every Saturday night. There were a few shows like that back in the day, like Louisana Hayride, which goes back to the 50s. That’s where Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins, all the old greats got their start to the music biz. Anyhow, another guy who worked at WYNK, Page Dew, knew a guy who had been recording these Old South Jamboree shows at home on a consumer reel-to-reel deck—a total of about sixteen reels.”

How was the condition and quality of the original recordings?

Jeff: “Well, most were quarter-track recorded at 1 7/8 ips. Doesn’t provide a heckuva lot of bandwidth! When quality is at stake, faster tape speed is preferred to create more bandwidth, but that didn’t happen here. Not only did I have limited bandwidth to work with, but these songs were recorded off the air from a mono FM radio broadcast. Next, add that the band was recorded with only three mics, and their signal was being transmitted by a Marti transmitter (used for remote broadcasts back in the day), sent to an FM station, and then recorded by a listener at home at only 1 7/8 ips!”

“So, It was a really challenge to get quality out of that source. But when you hear it, it puts you in a very different frame of mind. It takes a listener back to a different era, when one speaker getting music out of the air was enough, regardless of how it sounded! When I heard the first reel I was transported back in time.”

Any way we can track down the guy who provided the tapes? Are there any more?

Jeff: “He’s long gone. I talked to Page, who lives in Colorado, and asked him that. He said that this guy and these tapes are dated from early 1973 to 1976. He said it was an old listener, and apparently someone at the station gave him the reels to record these shows—tape was six or seven bucks per reel back then.”

What hardware did you use to transfer and restore the recordings?

Jeff: “I used the StudioLive 164.2’sEQ on these recordings because I really love the Fat Channel. I was first on the list when I heard the StudioLive was coming out. Once I got my hands on it I was like ‘Cool!’ It’s my main console, everything goes through it to get into the computer.”

“My wife found the reel-to-reel I used, a Pioneer quad, at a garage sale. Got it for 50 bucks. The material recorded at 1 7/8 ips would only play at 3 ¾ ips on this tape machine, so it was still twice as fast as real time. Of course I couldn’t EQ that, so I had to pitch it down in software and then run it through the StudioLive. There were 3 reels recorded at 7.5 ips that I could process through the StudioLive directly before taking it to software for fine-tuning, pitch correction, and noise reduction.”

Will the recordings be made publicly available? Or is releasing all these old songs form these artists a licensing nightmare?

Jeff: “Exactly. Contracts were looser back then. I gotta tell ya, over 90-95 percent of this music was performed by local artists. Some are way out of tune, some can’t hit notes, and of course the mix was awful by today’s standards. I need to be careful about the copyright issues. Several friends of mine have asked for copies, there were a couple of artists who were pretty popular in the day who are now gone, singing some of their hits.”

Thanks, Jeff. Anything else to add about the StudioLive?

Jeff: “I don’t use it as a typical recording or musician-guy. Most of my use has been for advertising and corporate events. I learned early on that if I was gonna work with bands, I had to work with no budgets and weird hours! I figured that wasn’t for me.”

“Since I’ve had the StudioLive, I’ve recorded Scott Innes, whose voice credits include Scooby Doo and Shaggy, who lives in Baton Rouge. I’ve also done quite a bit of work with Warner Bros. using the StudioLive.”

“Another thing I use it for is the Louisiana State Medical Society Annual House Delegates meeting. I use the StudioLive’s noise gates on their mics—it’s a big live room, and there’s a lot of interaction going on. So, I don’t have to worry about running gain on my mics. I love it. It has that finesse I need to mute a mic when not in use, but when the person starts talking it breaks the gate… good to go! I also rent a StudioLive 24.4.2 for the annual Acadian Ambulance Service Paramedic of the Year award program. More like a theatrical event with lots of wireless mics, skits and over 80 sound cues!”

June 5,2013

[International Sales Director of Mystery Mark Williams reports from the inner sanctum of La Gruta! Fortunately for us, his 6G geniusphone prototype was able to acquire adequate reception to get these photos out from deep within a quarter-mile of Mexican bedrock.]

He reports:

“I had lunch today at La Gruta with one of our Mexican distributors. The restaurant is inside a volcanic cave that was used by the Mayans and also played a part in the Mexican Revolution. It was established in 1906. There’s nothing like an interesting lunch environment after a week of presentations, demos, clinics, foiled assassination attempts, and meetings.”